The present invention relates to management of a business process, and more particularly to management of a business process using a network.
Every business has a process with which the business""s product and/or service is provided to customers. The business process determines the manner of data collection and manages the workflow. For example, a business process for a real estate brokerage may begin with a request by a home owner to list his/her house for sale. The real estate broker then creates a form on a computer, fills it out with information concerning the property, and leaves a spot for a photograph of the property. The real estate broker then instructs a photographer to obtain a photograph of the property. The photographer goes to the property, takes a photo, develops the film, and gives it to the broker. The broker pastes the picture onto the form. In the alternative, the photographer captures a digital image of the property with a digital camera and uploads the image to the broker""s computer. The broker pastes the image onto the form in the computer. The form is then photocopied to create flyers. For the flyers to be available on the Internet, the data and image are manually transferred to a web page.
However, this business process requires many of its steps to be performed manually. The real estate broker must manually instruct the photographer to take the photograph and which property to photograph. Once the photographer gives the photo to the broker, the broker must manually match the photo to the correct form. At each manual step, there is a chance for confusion, mistake, and slowdown in performance. The broker may forget to contact the photographer, may forget to follow up with the photographer if the broker does not receive the photo, or may mismatch the photo with the wrong form.
Accordingly, there exists a need for an improved method and system for data collection and workflow management in a business process. The improved method and system should use the Internet to automate the business process to decrease the chance for confusion and mistake and improve performance. The present invention addresses such a need.
The present invention provides a method and system for data collection and workflow management in a business process using a network. The method includes: accessing a web server; defining a plurality of steps of a business process on the web server; and automatically implementing the plurality of steps. The plurality of steps includes: sending a request for data, receiving the data with tags, where the tags comprise identifying information concerning the data, and storing the data based on the tags. The present invention allows a business process to be created on a web server via the Internet, where the business process is then automatically implemented by the web server. The business process is stored in a database. The web server manages the data collection and workflow using the information stored in the database. The present invention includes the ability to integrate a digital image capture device into the business process, where the web server creates an executable file which is downloadable into the digital image capture device. The executable file creates tags for the digital images captured by the digital image capture device. The tags contain identifying information. The web server uses these tags to match an image to any corresponding data stored in the database. In this manner, there is less chance of confusion or mistake, and the speed of performance is also increased.